for examination. The weather had at last improved and due to the war situation, shipping bound for the east coast ports had to take the route northabout Scotland. The admiralty decided on 21 July to extend the blockade to the French, Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic coasts and to French North Africa, naming it the Western Patrol. The ships were to be poached from the Northern Patrol but the new patrol was to remain under the existing command. Cilicia and Cheshire sailed on 19 July, to be joined by the trawlers Kingston Jacinth, Kingston Sapphire, Kingston Topaz and Kingston Turquoise. The number of ships on patrol in the area of the Northern Patrol had declined due to the detachments and because one AMC had been paid off and three transferred to the Atlantic and West Indies Command. Forbes ordered the Northern Patrol to watch the seas north of the Faroes. When Spooner asked for ten more trawlers or corvettes he was told that none was available. Despite the success of the , part of German Naval Intelligence Service, the , in reading British naval codes, the change went unnoticed. On 9 August, Transylvania, having departed the Clyde and passed near Ailsa Craig, was torpedoed just after midnight and began to sink by the stern. A distress call got an aircraft on the scene by 03:15 then three destroyers; only Transylvania's ping-pong balls had stopped it from sinking faster. No casualties had been suffered in the torpedo explosion but one boat was launched with only five men on board and disappeared. The rest of the crew who should have boarded, crowded onto another boat which capsized and another overcrowded boat capsized next to a destroyer. The confusion of the evacuation in the dark and in bad weather caused the worst loss to the Northern Patrol since the sinking of Rawalpindi. On the following day, California received a distress signal from SS Llanfair and Captain Pope had to decide whether to obey standing orders to avoid a danger area or attempt a rescue. A British aircraft was overhead of Llanfair, the sea state made another attack by a U-boat difficult and Pope decided to risk it. California dropped depth-charges as it arrived and picked up swiftly the thirty survivors, receiving orders not to attempt a rescue thirty minutes afterwards. Interceptions January–April 1940 End of the Northern Patrol On 18 November 1940, after the